| Don't Like It but I Guess I'm Learning [Genma & Kakashi] |
[Feb. 20th, 2010|08:24 pm] |
[Backstory. Takes place September 18th, four years post-Kyuubi. One and a half days after Learn the Hard Way, and only a few hours after Mightier Than The Sword]
Low light, hushed voices just out of hearing range, the scent of alcohol blended with chemicals and blood, and the fact that he felt as utterly ill as he ever had in his life told Genma he was in a hospital. For several heartbeats he lay unmoving on his back, trying to remember why. Then he wished he could forget. He tried to move his arms, and found his hands shackled and aching, one to each side, anchored to cold metal bed rails. His ankles, too, were strapped down, with his feet cramped and his legs wrenched apart. Belly up and vulnerable. It felt like night, but he had no idea how much time had passed since he'd last been conscious. Or what time of day that had been.
Someone came in. A young woman with long blonde hair and elfin features. She didn't smile. Not even a little. Her lips were stained a garish shade, waxy and wrong for her in a way that emphasized flaws in the symmetry of her face. She glanced at Genma, pressed a button, and raised the head of his bed. Then she snapped on a television set, added something to the IV in Genma's arm, gave him another cold, unreadable look, and left.
For the next long stretch of time -- long enough that Genma couldn't tell if it spanned hours or days -- he was left almost entirely alone.
( The room was not in Iwa's hospital, Genma determined, but a medical treatment cell in their prison. ) |
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| No Matter How We Try [Genma, Kakashi] |
[Jan. 21st, 2010|12:29 pm] |
Backstory. Set immediately following We All Have a Weakness, four years post Kyuubi, September 15th.
Kakashi might not know a damn thing about poisons, but he was the tracker. If he said there was a suitable campsite up ahead, he was probably right. A suitable, safe campsite, because deep inside Waterfall's borders only the most well-protected of locations would be worth considering for two battle-weary, poisoned, Leaf ANBU.
Which, Genma resolved to remember to point out once they were safely entrenched, Kakashi still was. Poisoned. Just because the antidote had saved him didn't mean he had nothing more to worry about. In fact it was Genma's responsibility as medic and poison specialist to check on that sooner rather than later. With only one tube of the antidote remaining to share between them, he'd need to titrate the repeat dose for Kakashi very carefully.
"How's your breathing?" he asked. "And your stomach? Are you hungry at all? Hungry would be a good sign."
Kakashi lifted his ANBU mask and gave Genma a look of rank curiosity, as if Genma had just turned orange, or suggested a swim in lava. "Are you hallucinating that you're a nice person, now?"
"I'm doing my job," Genma snapped. "And trying to make sure that you don't drop dead for want of a repeat dose of antidote."
Kakashi's eye flicked wide, then narrowed under a lowering scowl. "Repeat dose? There's only one of your tubes left and two of us. How's that going to work?" Before Genma could answer, Kakashi exhaled sharply, forcing the air out of his chest with a raw wheeze at the end. Testing. He shook his head. "It's fine. Sore, but fine."
"It will work fine, as long as we're careful. You got a much bigger hit of the toxin than I did, and I've got some immunity, or I'd have been lying on the ground choking to death hours ago." And Kakashi was breathing fine. That was also a good sign. His mask must have afforded him some protection...
And he was still wearing it.
"Take your mask off," Genma ordered.
The storm clouds that skated across Kakashi's expression were impressive.
"I'm serious. Take it off, rinse it the fuck out, and make sure you're not just re-poisoning yourself. If you go down again, and I'm not one hundred percent..." He didn't need to finish the threat. "Take it off and clean it. I promise not to look, so your modesty won't be compromised," he added with an eyeroll. |
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| We All Have a Weakness [Genma, Kakashi] |
[Jan. 14th, 2010|01:48 pm] |
Backstory. Set four years post Kyuubi, September 15th. One year after Kakashi and Genma's encounter in a safehouse shower, Love the Sounds When You Come Undone, two years after the mission where they learned to hate one another, How to Lose a Life. One year and seven months prior to Leaves' canon starting.
Genma hated several things about this mission already, not least of which was his mission partner. He ran next to Kakashi through the farmland that covered the plateau above Konoha, still well within the penumbra of their village's protection. A glance to the left showed a sea of vermilion and crimson, where autumn had set the trees aflame. That was another thing to hate: leaving Konoha at the peak of the fall flush, although if he wasn't looking for things to be unhappy about, Genma had to admit it wasn't as if they'd see no trees on their journey. But they were heading north, he grumbled to himself, and the trees to the north were more oaky, less maply, so less colorful. And anyway by the time they got back to Konoha the peak would be over.
Then there was Kakashi, with his disdainful silence, the twitching eyebrow when Genma had entered the briefing room, the dismissive snort that had stood for an answer when Genma had made what he'd considered a generous effort and greeted Kakashi with a shallow head-nod of a bow. Two years later and Kakashi still hadn't forgiven Genma for his dog's death? Just a month ago Genma had stood at the memorial stone, tracing a calloused fingertip over the names Ishida Nobuki and Oda Ayako, remembering carnage and failure, and the feeling of Ishida's heart stilling under Genma's hands. How did a dog's death weigh more heavily than that?
And one year ago there had been that... That incident in the safehouse showers. As far as Genma was concerned, that ought to have set them more than even over whatever karmic debt Genma had accumulated for failing to save Kakashi's dog. In fact the sums were looking decidedly to him like Kakashi was the one still owing something. The bastard.
( But there were other things to hate, too... ) |
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| Bringing Back the Living [Genma] |
[Jan. 14th, 2010|03:23 am] |
Backdated. Takes place in early March, one year and five months after Kyuubi's attack. One and a half weeks before Got That Mountain to Climb
The orders were clear and unambiguous; it was a retrieval mission--three ANBU were missing on a mission in Earth Country: presumed captured, feared dead. Shiomori Hiroko, ANBU Hunter, volunteered for the retrieval squad because she'd known the the agents who were missing: Kamiyama Kobo, Hoashi Seijuro, and Shiranui Genma. She knew Kobo best, a quiet, competent leader with nearly three years' service in ANBU and uncanny skills with explosives. She and Kobo had entered ANBU in the same rookie group, and had trained together, sparred together, taken missions together. Slept together. He was her friend as well as her lover, and reason enough, all by himself, for Hiroko to have volunteered.
The other two she knew less well. Hoashi Seijuro was a rookie she'd barely interacted with. But Kobo had said good things about the kid--had hand-picked him for the mission. He was young and inexperienced, but the ANBU they served in was full of the young and inexperienced. Just sixteen months ago the Fox had claimed far too many of the few seasoned veterans that the Third War had spared. For ninja like Seijuro, the four months' experience he'd gained since joining ANBU was enough. It had to be.
( Then there was Shiranui Genma ) |
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